Brain-Scan Lie Detection Rejected By Brooklyn Court 197
blair1q writes "A judge in Brooklyn has excluded Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) lie-detector evidence from a trial there. However, the decision will not set a precedent, as it was made without even conducting a hearing on the method's validity, but on the principle, argued by the defense, that 'juries are supposed to decide the credibility of the witness, and fMRI lie detection, even if it could be proven completely accurate, infringes on that right.' That principle can be tested in later hearings, such as one scheduled for May 13, 2010, in Tennessee; in this case, the defense wants to use fMRI evidence it has already collected to prove its client is innocent. fMRI has been shown to be 76-90% accurate. That number seems significantly larger than the rate of false convictions."
The statistical value of "resonable dobut" = 0.1% (Score:5, Informative)
The Supreme Court has given science the legal definition that a "beyond a reasonable doubt" equates to 99.9% certainty... a system that is wrong 10% of the time or more needs at to at least be much times more accurate before it's going to be trusted. You're only allowed one blooper in 1000 by this standard. Nice tech, but it's not there yet.
Re:The statistical value of "resonable dobut" = 0. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice tech, but it's not there yet.
What happens to the right to remain silent when it is there? The British have already gutted this right. Not that hard to envision the same happening here.....
The right to remain silent (Score:3, Informative)
The right to remain silent is meant to make sure no one can be forced to speak under torture. It does not mean you have a right to keep authorities from getting evidence against you. This means, for instance, that police can force you to take a breath or blood alcohol test.
If it weren't for the right to remain silent, the police could tell you "say you are drunk or I will break all your teeth" but it would be meaningless for them to say "breath here with a BAC of 0.20 or I will break your teeth".
Re:The right to remain silent (Score:4, Informative)
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Mandatory breathalyzer tests are, in the US, unconstitutional. The fifth amendment protects against self incrimination, which means testimony OR evidence. The state cannot compel you to provide evidence against yourself. With breathalyzers, if you refuse to blow, you probably lose your license, but you can't be jailed for it.
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Forcing a suspect to provide a sample would be assault.
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It's a lie detector not a mind reader.
Yeah! Do you know how expensive it is getting Kreskin [wikipedia.org] to testify? Plus, I bet he's booked for months in advance.
It is better than a jury of Bobs (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is better than what we have for false convictions than why prefer human prejudice/error over machine error. It seems to me one of those is far more likely to improve than the other and I'm not talking about Homo Sapien's ability to use critical thinking skills when confronted with conflicting emotive/subjective versions of events.
Also it is would only be a portion of the evidence which the case depends upon currently for it to reach a verdict. Anyone who compares this to lie detector machines does n
Re:It is better than a jury of Bobs (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is better than what we have for false convictions than why prefer human prejudice/error over machine error.
Because one of the reasons we have a jury system is to provide a check and balance on the ability of the government to lock people up. Jury nullification may be a bad word in the modern legal system but it's still there.
Re:It is better than a jury of Bobs (Score:4, Informative)
Well perhaps we need a check on the jury's seemingly endlessly ability to be lured into convicting innocent people out of motley assortment of prejudices and 'gut-feelings'. You can't tell me the fact that across the world minority conviction rates are higher for the same crimes because of anything but bigotry. Don't even start with the idea of ever person having the right to appeal, which can take years if not decades to overturn a wrongful conviction.
If this technology can get to 9X.x% accuracy in the near future I would like it to at least be used to prevent people from having to go to trial or have charges brought against them in the first place. District Attorneys have far too much power right now to prosecute people charge them with 5 crimes that can result in years in prison and 10's pf thousands of dollars for petty crimes like vandalism and than have them plea down to 30 days in jail and a 1000 dollar fine.
My friend in his last year of college was walking home from his art studio down town with all of his art supplies in a backpack near a bank downtown. A rent a cop came out of nowhere and started accusing him of vandalizing the property and started manhandling him and moments later the real cops showed up and arrested him. Why, well he had marker pens in his backpack that were the same type used to write anti-capitalist graffiti on the bank's ATM and someone had superglued the deposit door shut. He was held over night was forced to call his parents for bail, had all of his art supplies confiscated, charged with 3 misdemeanors that could of landed him in jail for 2 years, fought all the charges with a private attorney his parents paid for, lost all the charges got 6 months in jail and a 3500 dollar fine, appealed the conviction, found evidence that another bank in the area after he was arrested had the same graffiti done to it while he was with his parents 100 miles away, went to trial and the judge spent 3 days grilling him on his political activities before overturning the convictions. He got back his art bag, everything was either broken in half or torn and it smelled like feet because it had been locked up with his shoes for over a year at this point. He told me it took over 25,000 dollars to prove he was innocent and if he did not have well off parents he would of been in jail.
Public defenders in this country on average handle over 500 cases a year whereas a DA handles half that, something has to change or more and more of us are going to be going to jail as innocent men. In NYC the average case load of a public defender is 720 cases a year.
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why prefer human prejudice/error over machine error.
Because humans are more accurate than machines in a lot of tasks. No human exists in a vacuum, a machine does. Feed a decently educated person false facts and they will reject them. Feed a machine false facts and it will believe them.
Also, brain-scans and lie detector tests should not be used because they also subvert the 5th amendment. The constitution says
"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"
Because of that, one should have the right to withhold information that may harm them. With a human jury that is easy enough to do, but with a
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Lie detectors can't be admitted as evidence anywhere in the US. Those jurisdictions outside the US that would be tempted to use it probably are already using a kangaroo court so they don't really need evidence to convict anyway.
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The fifth amendment wouldn't seem to be a license to lie. In order to take the fifth, people say, "I take the fifth". They don't just commit perjury.
I would think that you'd invoke the fifth amendment before even taking the scan or when agreeing to the questions that the prosecution is allowed to ask.
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Ironically, personal testimony is worse then 90%. A lot worse.
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Ironically, personal testimony is worse then 90%. A lot worse.
Are you personally testifying to this? If we are to believe you, you're saying there's a 90% chance you're wrong. So we can't believe you.
Damn you for introducing a Liar's Paradox to a perfectly good Slashdot discussion.
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What you say would be correct if people were being convicted only on the basis of this fMRI lie detector test. In practice, how you get to a 1/1000 error rate is by combining several less reliable sources. For example, convicting somebody on the basis of one witness is crazy, but convicting them on the basis of 10 witnesses is reasonable. (Given certain assertions of statistical independence etc).
Re:The statistical value of "resonable dobut" = 0. (Score:5, Insightful)
Citation needed.
"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is not a formula or a slogan, to be sold, like Ivory soap, as "99 and 44/100% pure."
It only means, that in the light of all the evidence presented, the jury can in good conscience say that the defendant's guilt has been proven to their satisfaction and that any questions which remain will not alter their decision.
But that isn't relevant here. (Score:2)
Quick, everyone go read the Truth Machine.
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With a cluster of twelve of the most powerful super computers [wikipedia.org] known to date.
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The point of this is that if there's DNA evidence that's 98% sure and nothing else, that's not good enough for a conviction. If there's other facts that confirm the DNA's finger-pointing, then there's enough to convict.
Because they are unreliable. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Because they are unreliable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely no lie detector will ever be able to tell the difference between "this is true" and "at this moment, the suspect believes that this is true". With some mental training (or, you know, schizophrenia) it's entirely possible to temporarily convince yourself that the sky is purple, and there's basically no way any machine will be able to pick up on it in the foreseeable future.
No judgment should ever rely on "the machine says he thinks its true, therefore he is guilty" - no matter how accurate the machine is.
Re:Because they are unreliable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, we rely on "these 12 guys who have been struggling to stay awake during the proceedings think it's true, therefore he is guilty."
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"these 12 guys who have been struggling to stay awake during the proceedings, and just want to go home, think it's true, therefore he is guilty."
FIFY
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Even if the fMRI lie detectors were allowed, you'd still be relying on those 12 angry men to determine guilt or innocence. fMRI results would lull them into a false sense of certainty, giving them yet one more reason to shut off their brain entirely.
"The machine says he's lying, so he must be lying. Who cares about the rest of the evidence?"
This would be particularly bad in the he-said-she-said types of cases, where there isn't much other evidence besides personal testimony.
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When my freedom's on the line, I'll still take that over a machine test any day of the week.
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Where have I heard that before?
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Hey man, if you build a machine that reliably tell the difference between "right now, the subject thinks this is true" and "this is true", nobody will ever question you again - because you'll have basically constructed a universal oracle that can answer any question. You just have to find someone who believes all things are true.
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Lie detection is all about belief, not about the difference between truth and belief. The question is whether we can detect whether the subject is saying something they believe to be true, or they believe to be false.
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More importantly, lie detectors can only tell what the subject believes to be true. Given the number of people in America that believe that the world is flat, that Elvis is alive, that George Bush masterminded the 9/11 bombings, that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy, or that off-sea oil-rigs pose no risks, I think it is safe to say: "All sorts of people in America believe things that are not true."
This is a huge problem for witnesses at accidents. 5 different witnesses will give the cops 5 different stories, a
Re:Because they are unreliable. (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong again. Polygraphs can only tell when the subject is showing physical signs of stress through pulse, blood ox, temperature readings, and galvanic skin response.
Maybe I am stressed, I had a bad burrito and I'm terrified that the next fart won't be silent or dry.
An FMRI "lie detector" only shows you what parts of the brain are active on the assumption that certain parts lighting up mean someone is thinking too much and thus making it up.
Maybe my brain IS active, that one girl had some really nice breasts and I wonder what they look like underneath all that clothing...
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Good point. I see a high conviction rate for horny ADHD slashdotters on the horizon.
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Close. First the "reciting from memory" and "making stuff up" parts of the brain are mapped, and then you can tell, based on which part of the brain lights up, whether the person is lying or telling the truth.
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What if it's a practiced lie?
Memory doesn't exist (Score:3, Informative)
For the last time, there's not really such a thing as "Memory" in a human's brain.
We are not machines with a RAM storage or a tape recorder in the head.
We only function in terms of what is plausible and coherent given a set of rules and what is not. This is why it is entirely possible to convince someone of false memories (The book "Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments" has a couple of them cited).
For another example, you don't remember meeting Mickey Mouse in Disneyland because you have a Video
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This may come as a surprise to you, but this has been known to polygraph operators for roughly forever. That's why they ask seemingly innocuous questions, questions to which they know the answer, and questions with obvious answers - to calibrate
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I'm not a spy or a criminal, and it was still trivially easy to convince a cheap polygraph that I was a female angel with green wings and Dr. Scholls footwear.
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I'm not a spy or a criminal, and it was still trivially easy to convince a cheap polygraph that I was a female angel with green wings and Dr. Scholls footwear.
It doesn't count when you actually are a female angel with green wings and Dr Scholls footwear. How is the machine supposed to know those don't exist?
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Not to mention that fMRI can show that a dead salmon can have feelings.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ [wired.com]
After seeing this it will take a LOT to convince me there is anything at all valid about the method.
Not Very Accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
fMRI has been shown to be 76-90% accurate
That's certainly better than a weatherman but not good enough to convict someone.
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Indeed, juries are much more reliable.
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It doesn't prove he's innocent,
Why the hell is anyone trying to prove he is innocent? Shouldn't he need to be proven guilty while being presumed to be innocent?
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Why the hell is anyone trying to prove he is innocent? Shouldn't he need to be proven guilty while being presumed to be innocent?
Prove as in demonstrate without a doubt - like being seen by a million people on the jumbotron at a football game at the very same moment the victim was murdered over 200 miles away. That kind of proof it is not. Capiche kneejerk?
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So your point was that it doesn't prove he is innocent but adds weight to the defense's argument.
Good, glad it was clear.
My point was that trying to prove innocence is not something that is necessary.
No it wasn't. You aren't the only one who can get all pedantic.
It's the legal industrial-complex, duh! (Score:2)
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But of course the whole point is that facts, taken in total, tend to point the way to the larger truth at issue. How else would you have us do it?
Gaming the system (Score:2)
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What makes you think "truth" has anything to do with the US justice system?
As any decent (cough) criminal attorney will tell you, it's not whether you did it or not, it's what the prosecutor can prove. And, with Grand Juries (now there's a fair concept...no defense..) indicting anything a prosecutor throws at them, prosecutors know that if they can prove falsehood (not hard) then their conviction rate goes up, they get elected to public office and...
Step 3: Profit!
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To many people get (Score:2)
there science from magazine covers.
Newsflash, It's not really that good. In the best controlled enviroments, you might appraoch 90%. Maybe.
IN an actually court case? in a situation where you are under serious stress? no.
We have learned a lot about the brain in there last 15 year. a tremendous amount, but not enough to understand all the finer chemical interactions going on.
Even if it could be perfect,and it can't be, it would still violate the right to testify against yourself.
They court room is a horrible
76%-90% (Score:2)
Without a headlong dive into probability here, isn't 50% the baseline [ie. cointoss]? If so, isn't 75% only 50% better than guessing and 90% only 80% better than guessing? A description of "fMRI lie detection is 50%-80% better than tossing a coin" doesn't seem so impressive.....
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That's fairly disingenuous math -- you'd be saying that 100% accuracy is only twice as good as flipping a coin. For simple systems (two equally-probable states, like flipping a coin), 50% is a good baseline. It really depends on what their "accuracy" is measuring.
But yes, 75% accuracy is pretty terrible, and 90% accuracy might be good enough to help out an investigator, but not nearly good enough to present as factual.
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But yes, 75% accuracy is pretty terrible,
For this application. To reach the 99.9% court standard, we generally apply a number of different tests, all of which are less than 99.9% likely to be correct.
I wonder if you stick a guy in the MRI again the next day would you get a true 75% chance to be right this time, or if somebody who can fool it the first time is likely to fool it again?
Heck, what about combining this with the more traditional lie detector tests? Mythbusters actually rated the traditional test better for their limited not very scien
Lie Detection (Score:5, Informative)
Calling these devices "lie detectors" is misleading at best. Until they invent a machine that can travel back in time and compare the suspect's claims against the facts, there can be no lie detectors. All a lie detector can do is make visible certain physiological responses that are more or less associated with lying. While sometimes these responses are explained by the fact that the person is lying, humans are complex enough that it should never be considered a trustworthy mechanism as far as the law is concerned. Juries are easily influenced by apparently scientific evidence, but lie detection is a questionable science at best and could prejudice juries against the defendant.
There's an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit that does a good job of putting the lie to the lie detector.
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Even the best "lie detector" could only prove what someone believed or remembered to have happened. Many studies have shown memories to be very open to manipulation, children have been convinced by their doctors that they were raped by their own parents (when they were not). People have been manipulated to believe that certain individuals (who look nothing like the real perpetrators) committed acts of violence against them.
Even without overt manipulation, eyewitness testimony is notoriousl
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Another problem with "lie detectors," and a good reason that juries rarely ever hear about them, is that juries tend to give them undue deference. You can get a competent defense counsel to present evidence to a jury that they're not reliable, have a lot of false positives, etc etc....and at the end of the day, many jurors will look at it and still think "that's a lot of high-tech sciencey doohickamajigs right there, and this defendant is just trying to talk himself out of scientific proof! I mean, look a
fMRI defintiely works (Score:4, Informative)
And he did very well in excluding it (Score:3, Insightful)
Mythbusters MRI Lie Detector (Score:5, Informative)
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/db/human-body/beat-lie-detection-test.html [discovery.com]
Humans +1 (Score:2, Funny)
Is this dead salmon lying? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ [wired.com]
fMRI is a fairly arcane art- it's nowhere near the "thought detector" most laypeople think it is. The actual practice is rife with the chance to show confirmation bias, given the kind of data filtering that goes on during the process. Check out the link above- scientists were able to show the reaction that a fish had to watching pictures of pleasant situations (babies, puppies, flowers, etc). The fish was dead at the time of the test, however. So, if fMRI can be used to show that a dead salmon has feelings, I'm not likely to trust it for a "lie detector".
Relevant Conduct..ever hear of it? (Score:5, Informative)
While we're on the subject of the "law..."
Anyone ever hear of relevant conduct as the feds consider it? Basically it means that your custody can be affected by behavior for which the charges have been dismissed, or even charges for which you were acquitted.
I kid you not. Here's a true scenario:
A man gets caught with five grams of crack. (FIve year mandatory minimum in the feds, until the crack/powder disparity is corrected.) That's five years for about a sugar packet of rock. But when he is arrested,the cop says" hey you look like the guy that hosed down that McDonald's with an AK47, killing 35 schoolkids!"
Of course, you aren't, you go to trial, and after 30 seconds of deliberation, the jury acquits you of the mass murder charge. But you still go away for the crack.
Here's the kicker: when you go to prison, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) considers the murders "relevant conduct" and sends you to a very nasty pen, puts extreme violence on your record, and puts a Public Safety Factor on you, because of the "relevant conduct"...of which you were acquitted. Due process? Hah!!
Don't believe me? [washingtontimes.com]
Want the official Government position? [ussc.gov]
The US justice system is a fucking travesty, and unfortunately, you don't realize that till you're neck deep in it.
Be careful out there.
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Indeed so, exceeding it would be an Apprendi issue.
But, relevant conduct can be the difference between spending time in a camp or a penitentiary. also, the BOP can slap a "greatest severity offense" Public Safety Factor on you, and that affects your whole life.
Sound fair, for something of which you were found not guilty?
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Hoo boy some of the cases I've seen are so egregious they would spin your head. One example:
Limo driver picks up client at JFK. Puts suitcases in the trunk. DEA and FBI surround and stop the limo on the Van Wyck Expressway 3 miles out of the airport. Client hustles out of limo, runs away, never seen again. Suitcases contain 20 kilos methamphetamine, 10 kilos tar heroin.
Limo driver, totally innocent refused 10 year plea bargain, as anyone would. Jury finds him guilty of conspiracy...he gets 35 years in the f
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One of the many reasons that I always vote to decrease the power of government. Lower taxes + no deficit spending == less government power.
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The Interesting Question is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is the interesting hypothetical:
Assume this lie-detector is right 80% of the time, and that its success/failures are randomly distributed (e.g. not associated with socio-economic background).
Assume also that false conviction rates are at 21% (so only 79% of convictions are correct), and that there is substantial evidence that this is not evenly distributed (e.g. that false convictions are associated with low socio-economic status).
Would you be willing to entirely replace the system of jury trials with trial by lie detector?
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Would you be willing to entirely replace the system of jury trials with trial by lie detector?
To do so would ignore the brilliance of the system, and would emaciate the only good feature of it: popular justice.
See, the notion of a 'jury of your peers' isn't about proving innocence or guilt, per se, but is more about the people getting to participate in seeing their democratic laws justly applied.
E.g. 'jury nullification'.
Removing this element wouldn't be serving the people to the same degree the current system does.
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Absolutely.
If this was not the purpose of having a randomly selected jury of your peers, then the constitution could have mandated more accurate ways to establish guilt/innocence.
eg. Having professional juries full of experts in psychology/technology/etc (depending on the case evidence) would definitely improve the accuracy rate of conviction. But, this would come at the cost of losing the opportunity of being judged by your peers against laws that 'the people' view as unjust.
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Classic statistics problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of thinking (that if the accuracy rate is improved enough it will become a valid way of determining someones guilt) shows a fundamental misunderstanding of statistics. It is the same reason blanket drug testing doesn't work and medical screening can sometimes be a bad thing.
Let's imagine for a moment that this lie detector technology has been perfected to a 99.99% accuracy rate. Since the test is so accurate, we decide that whenever a crime is committed, we will just have everyone in the area take the lie-detector test, asking them the question "Did you commit the crime?". Clearly, when someone fails the test, they are 99.99% likely to be the criminal. Right?
Except no. In cases like this (where the average person is much much much more likely to NOT be the criminal, the error rate will overwhelm the actual guilty-rate. If we are testing everybody in an area, then we can suppose that each person we check has an average chance of being the criminal of about 1 in however many we are checking. If this number we are checking is very large, then we are CERTAINLY going to have quite a few people who are found to be guilty on the test but are actually innocent. It will pick out more innocent people than guilty people.
While this sort of statistical phenomena will not take place if we don't giving blanket tests to everyone and limit the test to people who we already believe are very likely to have committed the crime, we as a society have a very bad tendency to not understand the statistics and think we should just give everyone the test and let the results tell us who is guilty. If you doubt this, just look at how many people think we should have a DNA database that everyone needs to join (so we can just run any DNA found at a crime scene against it). This combines the birthday paradox with the statistics I described above to create a situation where we have a very real fear of false convictions, exacerbated by the fact that people who are relying on this evidence (juries) do not realize that even a test with 99.999% accuracy can have a very high false positive rate in these sorts of circumstances.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem#Example_1:_Drug_testing [wikipedia.org] for more info on the math behind this.
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Of course, nobody actually suggested just administering a lie detector test to everyone in the area. They only suggested allowing the results of the lie detector to be admitted into evidence.
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While I agree with your post I can see the slippery slope the OP is talking about. Where does allowing something like this lead? If it is so good, shouldn't it be mandatory, etc?
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You can also defeat the statistical problem by repeating the test a statistically significant number of times.
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The fact that some people do statistics poorly isn't a good argument against using statistics. However, now that I typed that first sentence, I have to admit that people who do statistics poorly are much more likely to be put in charge of deciding how the statistics will be used than people who do statstics well. Due to overwhelming base rates.
Was the witness a dead salmon? (Score:4, Informative)
Without proper correction, fMRI has been shown to detect brain activity in a dead fish [blogspot.com]. Next up, trial lawyers.
Busted Already on Mythbusters (Score:3, Interesting)
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Hmm. I was sure Grant said he put himself into a constant state of heightened fear.
wrong principle (Score:2)
If it's scientifically viable, it should be considered probative.
My grounds for rejecting it would be more along 4th amendment grounds, and I'd consider a brain scan as a search.
Legal History... and it's demise. (Score:2)
A large part of the legal system is to simply solve disputes. An almost certainty in any dispute is deceit, lying or other forms of ill will for which it's the duty of the courts to make a decision and hopefully the lies and ill wills will surface and justice will be served. Of course, in this fantasy world, unicorns run wild too but it's nice to think about but even harder to ignore that this is exactly what the legal system hopes to do.
If a device can systematically and scientifically determine if a per
Where's the beef? (Score:2)
The link that is provided to suggest the accuracy of this new approach doesn't really describe the studies used to determine the accuracy. At a minimum we have to know how the study or studies were conducted before we can be sure the researchers aren't just blowing smoke.
5th Amendment Issue (Score:2)
Sensitivity vs. Specificity (Score:2)
Accuracy isn't all that telling a figure. I'd have expected sensitivity and specificity: i.e. what proportion of lies are actually detected vs. (1-)the proportion of true statements which are falsely identified as lies. Actually, I was kind of hoping for an ROC curve [wikipedia.org] in the paper. It is kind of the standard classification metric in this field.
False positives in a system like this can be pretty dangerous. "Innocent until proven guilty" means they should be trying to reduce the false positive rate even if it
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If you take it and pass, you are telling the truth, if you take it and fail, why would you take it if you were gonna fail, clearly you are in the 10% of bad results. Win-Win.
It should never be allowed unless the defense permits it.
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Is there a better link to that article that doesn't require a login/account?
Countermeasure (Score:2)
Yes, and any effective countermeasure should be scored as a failure unless it's something like rolling around during the MRI.